16-Nov-2003 After our first successful visit to confluence 41N 116E, my outdoor friends and I were set to reach the next goal—find the neighboring 41N 117E. The map shows it’s located at a side of a highway north of Pingshan Village.

It was Sunday morning, seven o’clock. Lao Hu took Lao Li, Yang zi, and I to his car, and we started from Hangtian Bridge. We took Highway Jing-Shun away from Beijing, passing Miyun County, then turned to Province Highway 354. Just 27 km after we reached Lahaigou, we got on Highway 353. There were lots of towns and villages on our way.

11:00 We reached a town named Hushiha. Our confluence is 12.2km away. We turned right to Highway 244. After 8km driving, the GPS showed we were right on the north of it, a mere less than 2km distance, but we are moving away from it. We concluded that the small village on the south must be Pingshan, and we drove off the highway to the village.

11:20 Nearly a third of the Pingshan’s population are Muslims. We parked our car outside of a Muslim lady’s house in the east of the village. She was very warm-hearted. After asking her to prepare a meal for us, we went directly to 41N 117E. The GPS showed it was 700 meters north of her house. The confluence is on a hill. The hill looks like it was made out of a huge rock. The exact location is in a five-meter-deep gully on the hill. We had to go to the edge of the gully to take pictures of the surroundings. The former agricultural fields around were in a process of becoming a forest. There were a lot of dug holes for tree plantings.

12:00 Before lunch we strolled around the village, visiting its mosque and houses. There were a lot of chickens and geese. We bought some rice and chickens, and went back home with fruitful result after lunch.
(Translation by Weilan P.)